Sublimation

1. I have initial difficulty in trying to figure out how socially unacceptable impulses or idealizations are consciously transformed into socially acceptable actions or behavior.

2. I give an example of a blind man who transforms his unacceptable impulse i.e. his inability to see the world by studying Quranic Braille and eventually memorize the Quran.

3. My students are giving the example of an aggressive patient who suppressed the aggressive wish and transformed his gesture in public as a well-behaved person. To me, this sounds like a passive-aggressive attitude. However, the analogy is different when a person experiencing extreme anger might take up kick-boxing as a means of venting frustration. The latter example is closer to what it means ‘to transform into socially acceptable actions or behavior’.

4. As a mature defense mechanism, sublimation serves more than just an apparatus for id and ego. The superego function of which to serves a higher cultural or socially useful purpose must be considered when interpreting this term.

5. While Freud believes that sublimation is the process of transforming libido into “socially useful” achievements, including artistic, cultural and intellectual pursuits; Sullivan, on the other hand, believes that sublimation as the unwitting substitution of a partial satisfaction with social approval for the pursuit of a direct satisfaction which would be contrary to one’s ideals or to the judgment of social censors and other important people who surround one.

6. This is fairly complicated because Jung even believes sublimation as a mystical force. He believes sublimation is exercise by practicing meditation and prayer. In this case, he believes people sublimate their concerns to a higher power. Rather than they wrestle with grief and anxiety, they lay them on something, or in their mind. I got to disagree with Jung looking from Islamic perspective because prayer in Islam is the response to the Divine directive to worship the Creator.

7. As such, prayer is different from meditation because prayer represents the individual’s affirmation of servanthood before the Lord of Creation and submission to His Omnipotent Will. It represents a willing acknowledgment of human weakness and neediness by seeking Divine Grace, Mercy, Abundance, and Forgiveness. The only similarity with Jung’s assertion is that perhaps it is a wilful, directed action by the believer, seeking direct, unmediated communication with Allah.

8. I can agree with the fact that sublimation generally occurs when there is a period of angst or frustration. Therefore we need to think back to the last time in our life when we were frustrated or angry with something. How did we deal with it? And did we pray about it? Masya Allah.